A Strangeness in My Mind

'Rich, complex, and pulsing with urban life.' Kirkus Reviews
'Mesmerizing . . . A sweeping epic.' Publishers Weekly
'A love letter to modern Turkey.' The Washington Post

Since his boyhood in a poor village in Central Anatolia, Mevlut Karatas has fantasized about what his life would become. Not getting as far in school as he'd hoped, at the age of twelve he comes to Istanbul – 'the center of the world' – and is immediately enthralled both by the city being demolished and the new one that is fast being built.

He follows his father's trade, selling boza (a traditional Turkish drink) on the street, and hoping to become rich. But chance seems to conspire against him. He spends three years writing love letters to a girl he saw just once at a wedding, only to elope by mistake with her sister. And though he grows to cherish his wife and the family they have, his relations all make their fortunes while his own years are spent in a series of jobs leading nowhere.

Every evening, without fail, he still wanders the streets of Istanbul, selling boza and wondering at the 'strangeness' in his mind, the sensation that makes him feel different from everyone else, until fortune conspires once more to let him understand at last what it is he has always yearned for.

Told from the perspectives of many beguiling characters, A Strangeness in My Mind is a modern epic of coming of age in a great city, and a mesmerizing narrative sure to take its place among Pamuk's finest achievements.

PRAISE FOR ORHAN PAMUK

'Pamuk’s power continues to lie not with the theatrical but with the quiet and the slow.' Publishers Weekly

'No book by this skillful and ambitious writer is without interest.' Kirkus Reviews

'To read Ramuk is to be converted to the cult of the book.' Jonathan Levi, LA Times Book Review

'Turkey's foremost novelist and one of the most interesting literary figures anywhere . . . A first-rate storyteller.' Times Literary Supplement